


i'm an apostrophe; just a symbol to remind you there's more to see

by biochemprincess



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:00:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26032270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biochemprincess/pseuds/biochemprincess
Summary: There are cows, Nile realises as she gets out of the car. With bells around their necks. She's found herself in goddamn 'Sound of Music'. She says as much to the others."Sound of Music is set in Austria, not Switzerland," Nicky only says.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 29
Kudos: 230





	i'm an apostrophe; just a symbol to remind you there's more to see

**Author's Note:**

> The quote "Death can be undone, love cannot" does not belong to me. It comes from the TV show 12 Monkeys, which is really amazing. It's one of my favourite quotes and I think it very fitting, it sparked the whole fic.
> 
> Title: Whatever It Takes - Imagine Dragons

There's something vital Nile learns very early on in her time as the newbie immortal. 

It's not the various languages the others speak in rapid fire, switching between them as fast as changing a channel on TV, or where all their safe houses are hidden nor every secret they carry with them like overfull luggage.

The lesson is more nuanced, but no less important than knowing how to disarm an opponent. It translates to this: _Death can be undone, love cannot_. 

-

Andy strikes a deal with Copley. Or rather, if you asked Nile, she demands they be left alone for the duration of at least six months. It'll give them time, Andy says. To regroup, to settle, to get used to the situation. Time to scrub the internet and any database of their existence, for Copley.

Time to heal, for Andy.

Nile has just accepted the fact that she's in fact not physically able to stay dead and still cannot fully wrap her head around it. And she can any less imagine how Andy must feel, who has lived _millennia_ \- fucking plural - and now has to deal with the opposite situation. 

They decide to get out of London. Any plans of splitting up and meeting at a rendezvous point are flagged down by Joe. "We keep the band together," he says, a stern gaze on Andy, as if she'd argue. She doesn't. 

That decided they take a flight to Paris, and then a train heading towards Zurich. Switzerland is tiny and they still take almost two hours to get to farm house at the ass end of nowhere. 

It's higher up in the mountains, but there's still plains of green grass. On the roadside bloom white flowers. Even the air smells cleaner than anywhere she's ever been before. A tiny village, the last outpost of civilisation, is a few miles away. 

They're alone, but not cut off from help should they need it. 

There are cows, Nile realises as she gets out of the car. With bells around their necks. She's found herself in goddamn 'Sound of Music'. She says as much to the others.

"Sound of Music is set in Austria," Nicky only says.

Yeah, like that's the point. 

Inside the house is larger than it looks from the outside, still massive with its thick white walls. It's cleaner than she expected.

"Who takes care of this safe house?" she asks.

"It's not one of our safe houses," Joe answers. "We found it on AirBnB." 

_Oh._ "What is this going to be anyway?" Nile asks, dreading the answer.

"Vacation," says Andy.

"Getting to know you," says Joe.

Nile looks at Nicky. 

"Contemplation," is his answer. 

-

"Are they always like this?" Nile asks in a whisper, her head turning from Joe to Nicky and back again. She has no frame of reference, but she tends to think Andy's answer will be yes. 

The two have taken control of the kitchen tonight, after they've already taken care of getting the fridge and cupboards stocked up earlier in the day, while Andy and her are forced upon the couch to rest.

The TV is on, but it's in German and Nile doesn't understand a thing. Not like Andy, who lays flat on a yoga mat on the floor and stares up at the ceiling.

"Mostly, but especially after close calls," Andy answers. Nile raises an eyebrow. She's been there, she knows how close it has been. But once again she's lacking any scale to draw comparison from. "Getting taken really is a nightmare. Just remember that." 

Andy's voice becomes tighter as she says it.

The smells wafting into the room smell divine, though neither of the men are willing to share what exactly they're preparing. They move together fluidly, their cooking a well choreographed dance. Constantly they're handing each other something, before the other even opens the mouth asking for it. There are small touches, hands and shoulders and waist. Little kisses, in the between. Muttered words in a myriad of languages, dialects possible extinct by now.

Nile feels envious, she admits to herself. She's glad for them, because in the short time they've know each other they've become good friends through shared blood drawn by glass shards, shared death in clouds of gunpowder. But she knows that a relationship like this is highly unlikely to find for her. Most people don't get as lucky and her dating pool will age constantly, all the time, forever. It's all a little bleak right now. 

Nile withdraws her gaze from the kitchen and returns back to the foreign TV show. 

It feels weirdly intrusive to be witness to their small declarations of love. Her landmark has always been her grandparents, married for over sixty years. Her grandmother in her eighties, slightly morbid herself, had been adamant about caring for her grandfather all alone after he'd broken his hip. "Of course I can do it all alone," she'd protested. In vain, but nonetheless. 

Nicky comes into the living with plates in his hands and sets the table.

"Can I help?" Nile asks.

"No, just sit," he answers and is already back in the kitchen, before she can offer again. 

"They're..." Andy starts, but doesn't finish the sentence. 

"What?"

"When you're living forever, it messes with your head. There's little you can do for others to offer them comfort. Their way of showing affection is to cook for us. Let them," Andy explains.

Nile nods along. There's so much she doesn't know yet and even forever seems to short of take it all in. "Okay." 

There's more to be said, but she lets it slide. There a hole in their group - Booker-shaped - and Nile can't, and won't, be his replacement. But she'll be around as herself.

-

Her breath is easy, unlaboured. 

She'd woken up in the dead of night, unable to sleep any second longer and decided to go for a run. Nile is glad she has a room all to herself, but doesn't give in to any illusions that Andy doesn't know exactly that she'd left the house.

Nile looks behind her, but there's nobody following her, so they must trust her enough to leave her be. She picks up speed, faster and faster, until her lungs finally burn and she has to paint for breath. The immortality thing has done wonders to her stamina endless hours at the gym hadn't been able to achieve. 

She's run through a short stretch of wood, enjoying the cool air under the trees and now as the day really comes along she's arriving in the outskirts of the village. As she slows down to a more human speed, Nile finds it's not as tiny as she thought at first. 

There's a grocery store and a solid bed and breakfast right next to a small souvenir shop. The only shop that's open at this hour is the bakery and so she gets herself a coffee. Quickly she ponders if Nicky would take offence if she'd get them all breakfast, but decides she'll take the risk and buys a bunch of bread, cinnamon rolls and other stuff she cannot translate but looks good.

Then she sits on one of the small chairs outside, watching the last of the sunrise. It's peaceful, almost.

Nile thinks about her family. She's missing them with a fierceness that cuts through her like hot iron branding skin. It hurts to think about them, but it hurts more to entertain other possibilities. That she might one day forget their names, their faces, their voices - like Andy. 

Andy still has her phone, but it's not the only form of communication available to her. She could wait a little more and buy a postcard and send it home, could tell them she's alive. Andy wouldn't know, or if she did find out she couldn't stop her.

But Booker's face as he talked about his son won't leave her mind, the constant circle of sheer pain he was caught in. He'd betrayed his friends for a chance to find peace in the only way he thought possible - death. 

But Nile is not so sure if it's the only way forward. Maybe it's the optimism rising in her, but when the souvenir shop turns the sign from 'Closed' to 'Open' she goes inside to buy a postcard. 

On the run back, made slightly more challenging by the bag of backed goods, her head feels lighter. As if a weight has lifted. 

All three of them await her already, sitting around the table on the porch outside. 

"I brought breakfast," she says, puts it on the table. Three pairs of eyes track her movement, watch her hawk-eyed. 

"What's the card for?" Nicky asks, nodding at the postcard still in her hand.

"A souvenir, so we can remember this trip," Nile answers. It's the truth. 

Smiles of various intensities start spreading on their faces. The sun glows on the sky above them. It's as close to peace as they may come these days.

-

The days start blurring into one another. It feels like spring break, because they drink a lot of _Alpenbitter_ , which taste dangerously close to Jägermeister, and just go to bed whenever they want. 

Nicky teaches her the basics of the German language, but the different cases and Frankenstein-words make her head spin. Joe makes her say _Oachkatzlschwoaf_ multiple times until her tongue basically twists up. 

"It's Bavarian dialect, to mock tourists" Andy explains patiently, always the stone-faced, silent watcher over their lesson, never without her sunglasses. It's to hide the dark circles under her eyes, Nile knows. And just maybe because the sun now actually has an effect on her again. 

In an unexpected turn of events they actually had to buy sun screen for Andy.

In the evenings they watch Netflix - the internet connection is surprisingly good - or play cards or sometimes watch the stars in silence. 

"Did you ever return to your family after your first death?" Nile asks Joe one of these nights as they sit alone on a table outside. There's an empty glass of wine in front of her.

"No, there wasn't much of my family left anyway and I didn't want to burden them with my problems. But Nicky went back Genoa a few years after we met." Joe says it so calmly, as if Nile didn't know they'd killed each other on multiple occasions. 

"How did it go?"

"Poorly," is the one words Joe offers. Even in the darkness Nile can make out the pure hatred reflecting in Joe's eyes. He won't speak more of it - he was there, she can tell, but it's not his story to tell. She doesn't think she'll ask Nicky. She can fill in the gaps on her own. Maybe in a few years.

"Do you regret it? Not having a least chance to see your family?"

Joe thinks about it. "No. I said my goodbyes when I went to war, I fought, I died. It went as predicted, no need for regrets." 

Nile chews over his reasoning. Her story isn't that much different. She too had said her goodbyes before being shipped off. She hadn't expected to die. Death had always been a possibility, she'd been a soldier after all, but it was more of a general concept than something that could happen to you personally. You always thought you'd get out. 

"Are you eventually gonna forgive Booker?"

This time he takes much longer to think about the question. She pours them more wine in the meantime. "It's only been a few weeks." 

Nile knows that. But she's only been part of their little group of misfits for the same few weeks. Her opinion isn't worth much, but she's going to offer it anyway. "He didn't mean to cause so much harm."

"I know, but it doesn't make it any better. He betrayed us."

Nile thinks back to the first evening, Joe and Nicky in their own world together, Andy doing her thing. She will not be making excuses for Booker, but she understands where he might have strayed from the right path. And she knows Joe knows it too. "It's not your fault," she says. 

"Maybe we weren't good friends," Joe sighs, taking a sip from the wine glass. A very long sip, by the end the glass is empty.

"I disagree."

"Well, thank you."

"Do you think I can go to my own funeral?" Nile changes the topic. It's not that bad of an idea, not worse than any of the things she did recently. "In disguise, of course."

Joe laughs. He reaches over and squeezes her hand for a moment. "Don't think so. But maybe Andy can be persuaded to stand in the back, dressed all in black, and be mysterious." 

The image is so surreal and yet perfectly imaginable, Nile starts laughing and can't stop. Tears are gathering in the corners of her eyes. Before she knows it, the laughs turn into sobs, wrecking her body and leaving her a crying mess. She shouldn't be laughing about this. But a dam has broken and now she cannot stop letting every single emotion stored up inside her out, all of them at the same time.

There's a warm hand on her back, moving along her spine in soothing strikes. When Nile opens her eyes again, she finds Andy crouching next to her, her hand on her knee. Nicky puts down a glass of water on the table. Concern is written all over is face. 

Things may never be alright ever again. Perhaps she'd grow to become just as bitter as Booker, resenting her very existence. But she hopes it will never be the case. She knows she doesn't want to disappoint any of them.

-

Nile griefs. For herself and her life, for what she's lost when the blade met her throat and she bled to death in the desert.

But it's not the end.

Not yet. 


End file.
